I n a scene that’s part Afrofuturistic, part postapocalyptic, a group of cosmonauts are gathered on a dune. Each wears a space suit that’s made of cotton and cuffed at the ankles. Some are hooded; others gaze out through the portal of their basket weave space helmets.

There are broad-rimmed glasses fashioned from leather, and woven backpacks. They appear to be curious... exploring this world for the first time, inspecting woven pods and organic structures suitable for habitation.

These beautifully directed images are a bewitching first introduction to Lamu Space Station. The visuals are part cosmic, part earthly and recognisable. The group behind (and within) the scenes is an assortment of creatives, mostly from Kenya, who are revolting against the space-fantasy future put forth by the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump.

“The main goal of Earth Force and the Space Station initiative is to stop buying into escapist fantasies like going to live on Mars, and instead celebrate all we have and all the potential of our own communities,” sculptor and filmmaker Ajax Axe explains.

Creating art and discussion that envision a more sustainable future, Lamu Space Station is both a project that manifests as a group and a gallery on Lamu Island, Kenya. It’s part of the global collective Earth Force Climate Command, whose tagline “Earth Is Sexier than Mars” explicitly challenges the space-fantasy future.

Lamu Space Station is headed up by Axe, who is joined by artists Abdul Kipruto, Anna Mokeira, Lincoln Mwangi, MT Shariff, Patrick Mwangi, Shizemonize and Amanda Schochet. “Lamu is the polar opposite of the space-fantasy narrative,” Axe says.

Here, a slow-paced life unfolds. The streets are too narrow to accommodate cars, so goods and people are transported by donkey, and most of the furniture and clothing are still handmade from natural resources on the island. Lamu is the location of the first Space Station; the other is in Aspen. Soon Lesvos and Khartoum will follow.

The wardrobe design was a collaborative effort between Axe, the group of artists and the artisans with whom they worked.

The helmets, “Lamu Pods” and backpacks were hand woven from raf fia by Onesmus Mangi and Francis Mlamba. Leiyio Oloishiro, a Masai artisan, worked with Axe to design the leather goggles, after which his mother and the women in his family beaded them.

The spacesuits are made of kanga, a Kenyan cotton textile. Nzai Justin, a highly skilled Kenyan tailor, worked with her to design and sew the spacesuits on a manual foot-pump sewing machine.

The beguiling images that depict this space future were shot and directed by Joseph Chege, a photographer and videographer from Lamu County.

But Axe is quick to add that it’s not Afrofuturism but rather local futurism — “There’s no one-size-fits- all African solution,” she says, as she implores us all to look to our own communities, our unique problems, and address them.

The various artworks were born from this narrative, reflecting the individual experiences of these artists in a rapidly changing Lamu. Their base and gallery is an old, abandoned building on Lamu Island that they’ve repurposed. Here, Shizemonize’s welded metal structure symbolises a ship sinking into an ocean of trash “as obvious as the destruction we see around us”, he says.

Abdul Rop, a 29-year-old artist and member of the Brush Tu collective in Nairobi, created a series of Leonardo da Vinci-inspired trash totems that juxtapose images of beauty and destruction. Shariff’s work is a sculpture made from discarded ropes and fishing.

Nets that references the growing problem of overfishing. The next iteration of the Space Station will be called “Hakuna Utopia” (translating to “there isn’t a utopia”), whose contents will be produced on Lamu and exhibited in Nairobi, London and the US. “This is where we live, right here, on this spectacular planet with so many wonderful people and landscapes all around us. If we stop thinking the solutions are elsewhere, we can surprise ourselves with what’s possible right here in our own location on Earth,” Axe says.

The Lamunaut’s narrative serves as a base for the group’s message. It is rooted in a story of refugees who leave Earth, colonise and then destroy Mars, and return to Earth in 2799 to help rather than to find refuge. On Earth they discover the remnants of a past civilisation and build towards a better future. The various artworks are born from this narrative, reflecting the individual Earth,” Axe says.